Editor’s Note: A few weeks ago, The Stream reported on a ground-shaking study showing that more than three million deaths worldwide were caused by unconstitutional and freedom-killing measures around the COVID-19 pandemic — some by the abortion-derived vaccines that allegedly were supposed to prevent the spread of the virus (but didn’t), as well as lockdowns and mask mandates. Jules Gomes told readers how Pope Francis spiritually blackmailed Catholics into adopting those measures; in her new book Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda (Broadside, July) Megan Basham exposes how several evangelical leaders did the same. She recently sat down with The Stream to discuss those details.

The Stream: You reported in your book that the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College formally partnered with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health to get people to take the vaccine out of “love for their neighbor,” going so far as to set up the website Coronavirus and the Church. Has Ed Stetzer, the center’s director, ever changed his tune about the information disseminated there that could have led many away from possible solutions that might have served them better?

Megan Basham: No, he hasn’t. Instead, at least one article Stetzer wrote during that period, which depicted Christians who doubted that the virus had natural origins as conspiracy theorists, disappeared from Christianity Today’s website. But he has never, to my knowledge, addressed it again.

Naming All the Sadducees Who Got in Bed with Pilate

TS: You mention a lot of people and organizations in your book who, along with the Billy Graham Center, Christianity Today and well-known faith leaders and influencers such as Russell Moore, author Philip Yancey, David French, Duke Divinity professor Curtis Chang, Bible teacher Beth Moore, celebrated theologian N.T. Wright, VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer, Baker Publishing Group President Dwight Baker, NAE President Walter Kim, Saddleback Church’s Rick Warren, Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear, and several seminary presidents, eagerly partnered with the government’s “mask and jab” enforcers. Was that the camel’s nose under the tent to get evangelicals to sign on to other nefarious leftist must-have “treasures,” such as championing climate change, opening our southern borders to illegal immigration, watering down the pro-life movement, and accepting Critical Race Theory?

MB: I actually think many of these figures became involved with other progressive priorities before the pandemic, so that when it came, they were already accustomed to using their platforms, pulpits, and influence for the left’s purposes. We see the National Association of Evangelicals and Christianity Today introducing climate change activism into the church years ago — for example, distorting Scripture to make it fit their environmental aims. Same with the immigration issue. Moore, Greear, and others were already applying unequal weights and measures there, acting as outspoken critics of the Trump administration’s policies but having nothing to say about the Biden administration’s callousness toward Cuban refugees. The double standard was long apparent.

When Francis Collins called on them to help spread the government’s false COVID narratives and to try to convince ordinary Christians to comply with authoritarian policies, they were just doing what they’d already been doing for years.

The Faithful Few, the Remnant

TS: You describe these particular “shepherds” in your book as “Wolves, Cowards, Mercenaries, and Fools.” Were there any heroes who stood up for their flocks’ freedoms against the overwhelming pressure from our government and their fellow evangelicals?

MB: Absolutely, and I’m so glad you asked this question! Many readers have told me how inspiring they find Cal Beisner of the Cornwall Alliance. In his spare time, with very few resources, he became a David figure, opposing the Goliath of the well-funded efforts to promote anti-human climate change policies in the church.

Kelly Kullberg of the American Association of Evangelicals did much the same on the issue of immigration, rallying a group to oppose the open-borders policies of the much-better funded and connected Evangelical Immigration Table.

There are many stories in the book of individual church members who, armed with nothing more than biblical discernment, faced down ridicule and ostracism when they refused to accept the worldly ideologies their leaders were trying to graft onto Scripture.

Churches That Knew They Weren’t “Non-Essential”

TS: You share the uplifting story of a woman from Waterloo, Canada, who found salvation and release from a powerful addiction because she was able to find a church whose doors were actually open during the pandemic. Trinity Bible Chapel defied the government mandates, and believers were present to help her through her time of crisis. Can you share another positive personal story because a church kept their doors open despite the government’s overreach?

MB: I have heard many stories from churches like Grace Community and Godspeak Calvary Chapel in California that experienced a boom in membership during the shutdown because they stayed open. So many people were prompted to think about eternal things in that moment, and the isolation left them looking for community. I have heard of many stories of people coming to salvation in churches that were open during that time.

TS: In-person church attendance was strongly discouraged during the pandemic, while abortion clinics and bars, among many other “wayward” establishments, were permitted to continue operations due to their “essential” natures. Did any of many high-profile pastors who promoted isolation for church members speak out at the time about the obvious hypocrisy of that particular government mandate?

MB: Not that I’m aware of.

Francis Collins’ 30 Pieces of Silver

TS: Dr. Francis Collins, who worked closely with Anthony Fauci, said Christians should engage in “gracious dialogue” about the COVID-19 crisis. But he went on, as you report, to suppress “the opinions of medical experts who disagreed with him and [used] his friends in the media to paint those experts as ‘fringe.'” Since that time, has Dr. Collins come around to a more “gracious” way of dialoguing with those he previously set out to smear, discredit, and in many cases, “cancel”?

MB: He has acknowledged that he and the government made many “mistakes.” But he has pretended that these were inadvertent, though we know now from communications records that have leaked that this was not the case — he and Fauci deliberately sought to harm the reputations of scientists who did not agree with them. I have never seen that he has repented of this.

Has Anyone Repented?

TS: It seems there were two prominent biblical tactics used here — after all, the appeal was from Christians to Christians: “Love thy neighbor” by getting the shot, and the command in Romans 13 to “submit to governing authorities.” Have any of the evangelicals who clung to these verses and ideas expressed new scriptural references to support showing “love” and “submission” in a way more aligned with the newly revealed truth about the pandemic and the vaccines?

MB: The only one I can think of is Andrew Walker of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I believe he has graciously said that he went too far in saying during the pandemic that one should get the vaccine to demonstrate love for neighbor.

The Prophets Finally Honored

TS: Many doctors and pastors signed on to the Great Barrington Declaration — the pushback to the prevailing COVID-19 narrative at the time. We were assured then by the powers that be that the vaccine was safe and effective and would not only save lives but prevent the spread of the virus; lockdowns, masks, social distancing were all the biggest safeguards against infecting others, as well.

Ultimately, many who signed the Great Barrington Declaration lost their previously stellar reputations in the field of medicine and research. Two among many that you mention in the book are Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist and pastor, and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford professor of medicine and health policy. Can you provide an update on their status and positions today?

MB: Both are thriving! Dr. Milhoan’s license review was eventually dropped. And Bhattacharya has become a more trusted scientific source because he had the courage to be a dissident voice for truth.

Meanwhile, Collins’s and Fauci’s reputations are in ruins.

Dogs Back at Their Vomit

TS: As the 2024 election cycle heats up, do you believe the evangelicals who supported governmental control over the COVID-19 health crisis will again back the powers that be if they dream up a new “universal pandemic” (can anyone say, “bird flu”)? Or have they finally learned their lesson?

MB: Probably. Given that they have given no indication that they recognize how they erred the first time around, and show every sign of hoping to memory-hole their behavior, I have no reason to believe they wouldn’t do it again. If they felt that the incentive structure once again would favor their aligning with the powerful, I have no expectation they would behave differently today, unfortunately.

TS: What do those who collaborated with the government have to say about the “separation of church and state”?

MB: They say they are strong proponents of it. Some, like David French, are such strong proponents of not just separating church and state but morality and state that they have argued that states like Texas should not treat parents who facilitate the mutilation of their children’s bodies as abusers event though that’s clearly what they are.

And yet, on morally debatable issues, they were happy to back authoritarianism like vaccine mandates.

TS: To close, it is appropriate to share your final thought in this particular chapter of Shepherds for Sale about COVID-19 and the “vaccine” and propaganda used to fight it, is beneficial:

I believe if those who used their positions of influence to unjustly burden and malign other evangelicals would acknowledge the hurt they caused, they’d be surprised to discover how many of their brothers and sisters are eager to at last put away resentment and anger. These leaders acted with utmost certainty. Yet they know now that they were wrong, while those they were accusing of being unloving were right. Refusing to say so suggests they have learned nothing and would do it all over again.

TS: Any final words to add?

MB: Just that unlike the cottage industry of books critiquing evangelicalism from the left (I’m thinking of books like Kristin Du Mez’s Jesus and John Wayne and Tim Alberta’s The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory) my intent is not to degrade and deconstruct the Church, nor to try to shame ordinary Christians for standing strong on biblical morality in the public sphere.

My hope with this book is to strengthen the Church so it will more faithfully pursue its charge of equipping the saints and calling the lost to repentance and salvation.

Albin Sadar is the author of Obvious: Seeing the Evil That’s in Plain Sight and Doing Something About It, as well as the children’s book collection Hamster Holmes: Box of Mysteries.